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Internal and external forces continue to impact on the financial service sector, making it ever more difficult for traditional banks both to retain their existing small to medium‐sized enterprises (SME) client base, and to acquire new business clients. The traditionally poor relationship between banks and their small corporate clients has been well documented throughout the years; however, the increased use of electronic banking channels by SME banking customers threatens to change the very nature of that relationship. This paper examines the current nature of the relationship between SMEs and their banks in Northern Ireland and investigates the level of usage of and satisfaction with electronic banking channels in this region. Empirical findings from a research study that included one focus group with members of the Federation of Small Business (FSB) (Northern Ireland members only), interviews with local managers from three traditional banking providers, and a survey of 250 SMEs (Northern Ireland members of FSB) are presented.

As global competitive forces begin to impact more and more on smaller enterprises, they may find themselves more limited in the approaches available to them to prepare for fundamental change. In‐depth case studies were analysed for 11 firms in the south‐west of England, of which eight were characterised as small/medium enterprises (SMEs). Each firm had recently undergone a major change, and their managers were found to face considerable practical difficulties in developing and updating their skills in comparison with their counterparts from larger organisations. The need for innovative new approaches to SME managerial skills development is argued, and the potential benefits of a generic “computer‐aided visioning” system is highlighted as a low‐cost option for the smaller enterprise.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a multilevel investigation of the existence and relationship between severity of buyer‐supplier contractual conflicts, emotional outcomes and disengagement behaviour arising out of the contractual disputes in Ugandan small to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs).

This paper undertakes a large‐scale comprehensive survey covering 839 SMEs' buyers together with their corresponding suppliers using Krejcie and Morgan sample size determination criteria. Respondents were managers selected on the basis of their purchasing experience and knowledge of the subject matter under investigation. Data were subjected to a confirmatory factor analysis as a quasi‐judicial analytical approach to assess the goodness‐of‐fit of the latent structure underlying the constructs under investigation.

The results demonstrate that both the confirmatory factor analysis and the structural equation model have a good fit. The direct effects of the severity of buyer‐supplier conflicts and emotional outcomes of buyer‐supplier emotions taken together is significant and explains 37 per cent of the variance in buyer‐supplier disengagement.

The study predicts the emotional outcomes of buyer‐supplier conflicts which were thought to be idiosyncratic, and erratic. Their connection to organizational outcomes was considered convoluted.

In the final years of the twentieth century there is likely to be an increasing rate of change for all types of organisations. How will they respond to this?

The Internet has been called the technology of the century because it is expected to reduce the development gap between developing countries and developed ones. This article examines the validity of that assertion. The researcher examines Internet use at two levels. The first level is the macrolevel of issues of Internet connectivity in developing countries and the second level is the microlevel of the usability of the World Wide Web (WWW) for information management in a developing country, Botswana. The two research methodologies of content analysis and case study were used for this study. The findings of this study are that entrepreneurs found a Website easy to use, but while there is a need for macropolicy to create national and global environments for using the Internet sustainable connection should not be universal, but should rather be based on the information management needs of a target population. Inherent infrastructural and socio‐technical challenges should then be tackled as part of the effort to create a sustainable Internet usage.

The emergence of the Software-as-a-service (SaaS) licensing model dramatically changes how enterprise software is released. Especially, it is favored by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) because of the cost-friendly feature. In contrast, many large enterprises (LEs) own relatively abundant budgets and prefer the on-premise software to fulfill demands through customization. Considering the differentiated cost-acceptance level among customers, this study aims to address the versioning problem of the enterprise software faced by software firms.

A two-point distribution model is formulated to calculate the maximal profits software firm earned from both LEs and SMEs under three strategies (On-premise, SaaS and Hybrid). Then through profit comparison, this paper obtains the optimal versioning strategy and corresponding feasible conditions. Finally, the optimal solutions are derived concerning social welfare.

A significant finding is that moving to SaaS becomes necessary for the software firms in product releases since the on-premise strategy will not be optimal. Based on this, this paper discovers that when LEs own a cost-acceptance level close to that of SMEs, the hybrid strategy is the only optimal choice. When LEs become less sensitive to costs, the hybrid strategy is suggested if the customization cost falls below the threshold. Otherwise, the SaaS strategy becomes the optimal option. The conclusions explain why some software vendors transit to “cloud companies” thoroughly and provide practical insights for software firms’ future decisions.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first information economics study to consider consumer cost sensitivity in discussing enterprise software versioning. The differentiated cost-acceptance level is introduced to describe the customer utilities, and the results uncover the necessity of moving to SaaS under diversified customer composition. This work provides significant theoretical value and practical insights.

The purpose of this research is to explore corporate social responsibility (CSR) evidence and, especially, the experience and practice of enterprises in Portugal.

As a generally accepted principle, the corporate social report is a communication and measurement object. But there are limitations concerning availability and accuracy of the data that could create constraints and diminish the scope of this report. Thus, the methodology for this paper is subdivided into two different aspects of research: First, an individual perspective about each enterprise studied and second, a general perspective applied to CSR in Portugal. The sample used was based on the survey developed by the Instituto ETHOS, applied to a sample of enterprises carried out in Portugal, during the year 2002. It was published by Exame in a special edition – “The guide of socially responsible enterprises”. So, the authors analyze and present the results that are of interest in the area of CSR activity. In order to do so the authors develop a principal component analysis to sort and group the original data.

The preliminary analysis generated three components of CSR: the external influence (CSR external), the market influence (CSR market) and the operative influence (CSR operative) of the enterprises in Portugal.

This research shows cultural differences and helps to highlight the importance of more research in this area in the newly expanded European Community. It also highlights the relationship between CSR activity and corporate image and performance.

Alternative corporate governance systems (CGSs) have attracted a significant bulk of research recently. While the connection between the adoption of an alternative system (one tier board or two tier board system) and firms’ performances has not been fully analysed yet, the purpose of this paper is to analyse whether companies which have turned into an alternative board system have eventually improved their performance over time.

Using a sample of more than 15,000 Italian unlisted joint stock companies, the authors compare performance outcomes in 2009 of firms adopting alternative systems with performances of firms that maintained the system in force before the 2003 Corporate Law Reform (defined as “traditional”). Because of the choice of an alternative system (one tier or two tier board) instead of a traditional one is not random, the authors reduce selection bias implementing matching methods and comparing firms that are close in terms of propensity score measured in 2003 (the year before the new CGSs have been introduced by a corporate law reform).

The authors do not find evidence of a significant improvement of performances in 2009 concerning those firms that have adopted a one tier or two tier board systems with respect to those which maintained a traditional one.

The novelty of the study concerns the application of propensity score matching for the evaluation of the impact of the change of the CGS that is possible in presence of two conditions that are all verified in our setting: first, to have a country where corporate law allows for choosing among different systems; in this case Italy is a good laboratory, because it allows for the choice among three different systems; and second, to have the opportunity to evaluate the effect of the change in light of a relatively recent “pre-treatment” condition; this is made possible by the fact that before the 2003 Reform of corporate law all the companies had a traditional system.

Constructs a new management agenda to evaluate the effectiveness and appropriateness of the marketing organization for the future, reflecting certain key changes in the current marketing environment. Argues that these critical factors impacting on the marketing organization include accelerating both external environmental changes and internal organization developments. Raises many important questions relating to the survival and the future forms of the marketing organization and the implementation of the marketing process. Finds that a prime manifestation of these changes is the development of various types of network organizational forms to implement strategic alliances and inter‐organizational collaborations and partnerships. Proposes a structured approach to mapping the implications for the organization of such changes and the development of an organizational strategy that defines an appropriate role and form for the marketing organization and marketing processes in the corporation of the future.

Research on Science parks (SPs) has attracted a growing interest in the last decades. This widespread innovation policy initiative pursues technology-based industrial and entrepreneurial growth through business development and technology transfer across new and mature firms. Despite the common agreement on SPs' potential benefits, literature have showed mixed results regarding the performance of SPs. To explain this findings, current research pointed out at the lack of a common guiding framework. To cover this knowledge gap, this manuscript proposes an integrative definition and research model together with a multidimensional measurement instrument suitable to encompass the diverse reality of this global phenomenon.

Based on a systematic literature review of 281 indexed journal articles published between 1990 and 2018, the paper provides an integrative framework of enabling factors of SPs' performance.

The results illustrate an integrative conceptual framework of SPs that allows further comparison and generalization of research. At the same time, this manuscript provides valuable insights for managers and entrepreneurs as it conveys a standardized view of SPs' internal context useful for benchmarking.

Grounded in the resource-based view (RBV), the paper conducts a thorough literature review to develop an integrative research model featuring three value streams: physical infrastructures, formal links and support services. In addition, a multidimensional measurement tool to operationalize these three dimensions is proposed.